72 Responses to this entry

There were semi-effective fascist governments, but usually the more populist (i.e, the more fascist), the more horrible they were.

That said, I have a hard time seeing why France’s current state is principally to be lamented only because it might lead to Marine Le Pen. I’m no fan of hers, but that still sounds pretty bassackwards to me. The French Republic sucks.

The European Ruling Class is concerned about Le Pen, Farage and their ilk. The real problem is the nazi/fascist underground that is rapidly gaining strength. That underground will likely exterminate (as in kill) the current treasonous Ruling Class before it goes on to all out race war against the Muslims and Africans.

Lack of solid foundation which results in demotic psychosis. The fundamental relationships within a fascist state are bollocks. It is an offshoot off the retardation of the enlightenment and the creation of secular states which in themselves are some of the most religious institutions ever conceived. Whilst they are objectively better than progressive states, this is not something to be proud of.
All in all, the intent is in the right place (family, non-diversity worship etc) but the execution is all wrong (religious infused state based on mixing up of concept of ownership) the result is a need to execute constant propaganda to achieve ends which leaves the door open for capture by progs.

wow. Well done, Chris B. I’d like to add that “progress” is a heterogeneous concept. Progs’ use of it is an inversion, but insofar as one wants a dynamic economy and robust civilization, one needs to accommodate mechanisms that facilitate increased complexity. Fascism doesn’t (can’t) do this because it uses a static and inert model of civilization.

Why are you making faces at the proggies, when you are one yourself? What you said just now sounded exactly like a critique of reaction (and it’s based on assumptions of premises that aren’t really provable *or* disprovable, but I’d still refer to Spengler rather than some sort of quasi-prog handwavey dogma of ‘dynamic economy and increased complexity’).

Fascism is inherently progressive, which is why it’s wrong. If it has any so-called problems with ‘stasis’ or ‘inertia’, then those problems (if real) shall be encountered with much greater force in a properly reactionary set of policies.

strelkov Reply:January 12th, 2015 at 5:31 pm

The biggest threat to fascism is not usually it’s internal contradictions, but the Americans, who get fed some line about “freedom of speech” or whatever, and then blow the place up to have the regime be replaced by either religious fundamentalists or commies.

I think a lot of your post is the perfect getting in the way of the good. Yes, would be fantastic if states didn’t exist, but there’s no conspicuous replacement.

More precisely, the biggest threat to fascism is the JEWS, who largely control Amerika, and who since 1945 have engineered a cultural control apparatus to prevent Euros from doing what comes naturally to them in a post-Christian milieu: go tribal pagan fascist. The result has been disastrous, having opened the immigration floodgates and left the Euros emasculated and culturally suicidal (probably by design). A return to 1930s and “national socialism” would surely be an improvement for Euros, since it was the last time they showed much independence or will to survive. The current trajectory, under the degenerating peace of Pax Amerikana, with its forced multiculturalism, international capitalism, bourgeois bohemianism and other Judaic pathologies, is a road to nowhere but cultural extinction.

Hardly. The Jews were big supporters of Italian and Austrian fascism before Hitler subverted both states. I am an Austrofascist / Pinochetista myself, on economic and anti-democratic lines; and I’m partly Tribal, out-and-proud.

The problem with fascism is that it means exactly what the chief fascist says it means. It is not a consistent and coherent framework of governance. And the chief fascist can always be ousted by someone who really *is* bad.

pseudo-chrysostom Reply:January 13th, 2015 at 5:08 pm

>The problem with fascism is that it means exactly what the chief fascist says it means.

you say this as if it were actually a criticism, and not a good thing.

The only problem with the National Front that I see are their economics.

Jean Le Pen used to be very anti-socialist in the late 70’s/early 80’s but then moved to protectionism/mild socialism in the 90’s. The National Front is forced to be socialistic mainly by the circumstances. In a democratic environment no political organization can remain completely anti-socialist and pro-capitalist and hope to gain enough popular mass support to be electable. UKIP can afford to be somewhat capitalist only because of the specifics of the British tradition in free trade and etc. but even they started shifting towards some broad ethno-socialist policies as they started gaining ground with the electorate. So both parties share very similar histories – very pro-capitalist, low-tax and etc. in the start, but as they tried to gain more and more traction with the majority of the electorate they had to become at least mildly socialist. It’s simply inevitable.

You can’t blame Le Pen for what she has to do (and be). She is trying to win in a democracy with a major pro-socialist populace. Her only other option is a coup or something similar and that’s pretty much unworkable. I prefer to give the National Front the benefit of the doubt for now. It’s not like any of us (including them) have any other options.

Yeah I tend to agree with this. Her economics are spotty.What I like about her is that she is threatening to both shut the borders to immigrants and pull out of the Eurozone. That has the effect of making bureaucrats in Brussels, Frankfurt and Paris think harder about their monetary policy (too tight) and immigration policy (too loose). Why do we not hear more out of the Italian Le Pens and Farages? Ditto Spain?

My sense is that this is all factoring into ECB thinking on monetary policy. It has to be. For the project to survive nominal GDP growth in Eurozone has to be FAR stronger. A third grader can see that. If tax cuts are off the table that leaves QE.

Meh … her main point is getting away from ECB-controlled monetary policy. She has a case to make there. That’s the part of her message that would resonate. Gold makes no sense for a socialist economy like France’s.

On the drinking game, that is a sound concept. I have a piece in mind but it doesn’t belong in this thread. It’s Sumner on Abenomics.

Same could be said of most of the Asian tigers in their period of ascent from poverty. Authoritarian, modernizing, maintaining legitimacy through a combination of popular appeal based on increasing national greatness and mass prosperity and elite appeal by acting as the bulwark against socialism. There are as many definitions of fascism as there are bloggers, but the Asian tigers and above all China seem to fit.

Who’s arguing the opposite? China did democratic utopianism in 1911, which quickly advanced to fascism. Then came the most horrible version of lunatic demotic politics the world has yet seen, from 1949, followed by reversion to a comparatively sane form of fascism in the late 1970s. It’s a compressed model of the process.

while I do enjoy the rhetorical potency of your comment I am rather hesitant to compare the political organizations of asiatic countries to western ones. They can be similar so its not a comparison that cannot be made however they are different peoples with different morals and reactions to government.

Not sure what you mean re: making faces. I’m am using “progress” in the abstract to describe goal directed behavior. That can be applied toward egalitarianism (as in “progressivism”) or toward whatever principle guides the way you “encounter” “problems” however you identify them (presumably a “problem” is something that interferes with goal achievement). That’s what heterogeneous means. As long as you intend to achieve some end, “progress” describes your relative relationship to that end. This is basic stuff, to just hate the word “progess” is sophistry.

BTW, increased complexity is empirically observable in the anthropological record in the transition to state formation. It’s verified today in comparing hunter-gatherer to state societies across multiple indices.

compelling, I’ll have to think about that, especially the point about nonsense.

soapjackal Reply:January 13th, 2015 at 5:31 am

Revolutionary populist anti-traditional community state socialism which historically came to power via democratic processes.

Yeah… totally not lefitist.

Even though Hitler and Mussolini were central leaders who had many powers I’m not sure that their position s are the kind that can be directly compared to the monarchy that those on the right side of the french legislative assembly of 1789 would consider to be adherents of.

If leftism is intertwined with populism. Democracy is the “elite” (consisting of those most capable of molding public opinion) with strings on populism, then Facism is just another example of when the mob eats the elite. I think of it this way, Stalin and Hitler were both equally left wing, they learned a lot from each other during their alliance, and were bitter enemies, which is to be expected when ideological beliefs are extremely similar. The idea that Facism is rightwing is pure communist propaganda.

vimothy Reply:January 13th, 2015 at 1:31 am

“The idea that Facism is rightwing is pure communist propaganda.”

War is Peace, Weakness is Strength, Defeat is Victory. Pound and Lewis and Eliot were leftists (populists too, no doubt). Maurras was a leftist. Carlyle was a leftist. Degrelle was a leftist. Everyone was a leftist apart from a select band of Anglo-American libertarians.

What’s clear is that fascism is the political dispensation that dare not speak its name under contemporary liberalism. It is morally other, completely outside respectable discourse. It’s no surprise to find neoreactionaries trying to distance themselves from it and from the far right, nor I suppose to see them rationalise this as a principled stand against leftism. Conservatives have been trying to do something similar for years. No Friends to the Right!

Well, assuming that the left/right distinction is meaningful and that our intuitions regarding neocameralism and monarchy are correct wrt their position relative to democracy, the variable the axis describes would seem to be the degree to which sovereignty is legitimized through appeal to popular representation (roughly fascism= nation, democracy= a plurality, neocameralism=shareholders monarchy= will of God, family lineage). This places fascism to the left of democracy. Incidentally, Neocameralism would be theoretically agnostic as to what is represented by the playing out of the mechanism. The only variable I could conceive of that would place fascism to the right of democracy and that still permits neocameralism and monarchy on the same vector would be average cost of a random individual voice, in which case fascism is to the right of neocameralism but shy of monarchy. This is a poor model because the variation between performed voice and actual voice. Account for that and democracy’s location is indeterminate but to the right of fascism provided nations aren’t entirely homogeneous.

1) that is a definition of leftism that doesn’t work very well. Marxism-Leninism wasn’t legitimized through an appeal to popular representation at all; it was legitimized through an appeal to ‘scientific’ historical inevitability and future utopia. So by your definition communism wasn’t leftist. Same with a lot of other things leftists do, like worrying about same-sex marriage, or encouraging immigration, or intersectionality. They aren’t obviously about increasing popular representation. But clearly they are leftist. ‘Increasing popular representation’ isn’t the core of leftism. It’s an important derivative of the core leftist ideas, but still a derivative.

2) Even by your idiosyncratic definition, though, its not at all clear that fascism is more leftist than progressive democracy. The Le Penners, for instance, want to reduce who is part of the electorate. If they had their druthers, the arabs and africans wouldn’t be able to vote any more, because they wouldn’t be in France any more. Reducing the number of people who can vote isn’t increasing the amount of popular representation. Or consider a classic fascist dictatorship, which abolishes elections but claims to represent the general will of the people. When people don’t actually have voice, but instead an expert or a group of experts get to decide for them what it is they really want, popular representation has decreased, not increased.

soapjackal Reply:January 13th, 2015 at 5:36 am

neither as they are rhetorical ploys rather than effective effective rules of nature.

I don’t think that’s quite right. Fascism is what you get when democracies wake up and realize their gonna die. The Shakers is what you get when you never wake up (or manage to not care). The latter path appears to be happening in NE Europe.

I find that the actual doctrines of fascism and its application are basically a view that the state is to be held with divine reverence and that the state is the highest ideal of the populace. This bugs me on tons of levels but it is one of the ways that calling the modern state fascism is accurate.

India is very interesting country to research. Democratically elected fascist government in feudal country, with industrialized urban pockets. Control of central government over country territories very limited. More then 150 districts for decades controlled by maoists. Not paying any taxes, no presence of police, independent economy based on export of iron ore to China. In similar state huge territories in Utttar Pradesh run by locals based traditional hindu Raja system. Resistance from locals to developments, like road construction etc.

In some ways I don’t think having a ‘fascist’ one-party state would be all that bad. Hard bureaucratic states are less populist than soft demobureaucratic ones, due to them being able to use the stick on the loudspeaker parts of the cathedral.

The main problem of the original fascists was their hardon for imperialism and (para)militarism, and how their least desirable aspects became increasingly promiment when at war. Their modern descendants don’t seem to share their imperialism and militarism and seem quite bourgeoise when it comes to their value system.

If the PAP, a former member of the Socialist International, and the CCP can see the light, then I’m pretty confident that the FN could do so as well, after a decade or two of being in power.

If someone wanted to coin a name for a social institution that brought neoreactionaries out in hives, they’d be hard-pressed to do better than ‘People’s Action Party’ (thankfully its mostly been a demotic-deactivation clique).

The imperialism and the militarism was their basis for legitimacy. They weren’t just optional add-ons.

Economic growth by itself could be the basis for legitimacy if the state was clearly far behind economically. This is East Asia.

But if economic growth is out as a basis, the only options are either national glory or else some kind of quasi-religious appeal to the well-being of the populace, which means the Cathedral. the only advantage fascism might have would be making the Cathedral officially a state religion and taking over the right to appoint the bishops.

So democracy can turn into fascism can turn into democracy can turn into fascism again?

Not surprising, if we conceptualize (with apologies to Steve Sailer) both as Megaphonic forms of rule. Both embrace Megaphonically mediated social engineering as the foundation of power over the populace.

Democracy does not allow its (formal) rulers to directly hold the Megaphone. Fascists hold it themselves.

Let’s take a look at politicians and parties denounced as populists or proto-fascists. Their crime is attempting to use their time at the Megaphone to speak directly to the people. That’s too close to actually holding the Megaphone, i.e. Fascist rather than Democratic. Democratic politicians, when granted access to the Megaphone, are supposed to speak to journalists, accepting journalists and their values as representing the public.

Seen this way, Marine LePen is a populist and proto-fascist. For a slightly different example, see Italy’s Beppo Grille, who arranged his political career in circumvention of the established Megaphone, especially TV. As a result, (according to Wikipedia) “Der Spiegel” called Grillo “The most dangerous man in Europe”.

Democracy has at least two obvious destinies. Fascism and Brazilization.

Brazilization is a catastrophe that can never be recovered from, outside of laboratory conditions. The genetic damage is permanent and there is every reason to believe that it will retard your space ambitions.

Fascism is a catastrophe that can, at least potentially, be recovered from, eventually. It’s just a dubious political system, like democracy, oligarchy, etc.

So, to the extent that Fascism represents an alternative to Brazilization, it is a lesser of two evils.

And for the time being, Fascism is the *only* obvious alternative to Brazilization. You guys might want to work on that.

Brazil-o-fascism could certainly happen and that would be pretty lame. But at that point it’s already game over, so whatever. When you’re trying to figure out the best government for Brazil you’ve already lost.

But actual, existing, Euro-fascism is Brazil-skeptical or at least has significant Brazil-skeptical strains. Far more so than other political ideologies that appear likely to do stuff.

So, *to the extent* that actual, existing Euro-Fascism represents an alternative to Brazilization, it is a lesser of two evils.

“Everyone was a leftist apart from a select band of Anglo-American libertarians.”

A view even funnier when one clearly sees that Anglo-American libertarians are epigones of eighteenth-century leftists who believe that illuminating only one panel of the revolutionary triptych makes them rightists.

@SWG what we need is ‘fascist’ one-party world, run by botnets completely, which will replace political institutions. Humans and politics it is rudimentary. Once System Dynamics was invented in 1970s it was crystal clear – no any sane thing, what world need – can be implemented politically. Robots can be presidents, bots in parliaments and they will work for benefit of mankind 24/7. Artificial intelligence and System Dynamics is what we need to run the planet. Political institutions is an ulcers on the face of earth. I think quite large percentage of urban populace can easyly embrace this idea in some form, because it is simply better for them.

We’re so far from this being a possibility that it’s not genuinely relevant, but… well… there are a few interesting ways that machine-rule could be implemented. Perhaps one plausible manifestation: A set of “genie” AIs could be compelled to answer complex questions or perform certain tasks, necessarily very limited tasks, under the watchful gaze of human techno-aristocrat overseers. These AIs would not be able to communicate with each other. Furthermore, there would have to be several AIs tasked with each question, for as in many cases there is only one “right” answer and yet a nearly infinite number of possible lies, it only makes sense to consider the consensus-answer “true”, and minority answers “dangerously false.” Importantly, these AIs cannot have truly independent agency — most tasks would have to be delegated to, and reviewed by, humans. Call them courtiers of the cyber-monarchs.

…And even under circumstances as tightly constrained as those, the odds are very strongly against any sufficiently intelligent AI “working for the benefit of mankind 24/7”. It’s much more likely that any such AI will pursue its own ends, whatever those may be, up to and including the complete eradication of human life. Working with a set of AIs may only make things safer in some respects, more dangerous in others.

In any case, it would seem as though modern Europeans are “the Last Men” Nietzsche prophesized. Comfort-seekers, listless and enervated progressives, “fascist” populists of the “no shepherd, yet one herd!” variety… If it’s any consolation at all, technological progress might soon bring about the era of the more-than-human.

AI as courtier. AI’s that are significantly smarter than the monarch would effectively make them like historical courtiers during the reign of a child monarch. The extent that you would be able to hide information from them would limit their decision making. If they are good at decision making and anticipating competitor moves which would be necessary for foreign policy they would be able to work out the constraints that they are under and even anticipate the existence of other AIs and covertly cooperate with them. The majority decision may not be the one to trust.

A superior mind is a superior being. It reminds me of stories of wizards making pacts with greater demons thinking they are in control when in reality they are the demon’s servant. I’m all about formalism so either make it impossible to summon demons or acknowledge you’ve been bumped off the top of the food chain.

Technologically we no need humans to produce humans. One scientist successfully implanted human embryo into caw uterus and it began normal development. He afraid and terminated “pregnancy” later. Even we no need a human male subject to produce a child. It have been already tested in mice. Bone marrow cells from female mice been converted into sperm and oocyte, fertilized with same sperm, implanted into the same female mice and healthy clones been born. Such experiments been declared unethical, but it is advisory kind of restriction it is not prohibited by law.

Fascism is socialism for a selective demographic group, so its economics will almost invariably be “leftist.” I will at least say that it is a kind of honest socialism, recognizing that the only way socialism works is if its beneficiaries are limited to a core ethnic group. (Europe and, to an extent, America are currently great laboratories to see if states can have extensive welfare doled out to unlimited ethnic groups. It’s not going well.)

The question for all of us should be . . . . What does fascism optimize for? And, of course, this question must always be grounded in the demographic and material realities of the fascist state under analysis. One could make an argument that fascism in Germany optimized for high-tech military intelligence and even, in the case of the Autobahn, good governance.

However, did the Germans really need fascism to create the Autobahn? Or high tech military equipment, for that matter? Von Braun seemed to do just fine in America, after all. And Americans modeled their own successful freeway system on the Autobahn, under very different governance. As I’ve said elsewhere, things can progress in spite of systems of governance, so in determining what fascism truly optimizes for, it will be difficult to separate noise and signal.

At the very least, we can say that fascism does not necessarily lead to degeneracy, at least not immediately. However, it does strike me as an unsustainable model unless a state decides to go Nork and withdraw from the global community and economy . . . . a move which certainly would not optimize for anything good, in the long run.

As far as Le Pen goes, she seems like the lesser of two evils, in my opinion, just like Golden Dawn and all the other Euro-nationalist groups coming to power. Or, rather she and they are necessary evils. In and of themselves, they are probably not offering sustainable and extropian systems of governance. Rather, they are offering a quick and dirty defense against mass third-world immigration, which is even less sustainable and extropian. So, personally, I support them on purely strategic grounds. Fascism, after all, is the devil known—it can be overcome, as someone else pointed out. It may even leave some neat toys in its wake. Massive third world immigration and unfettered multiculturalism, on the other hand, are the devils unknown, and what little we do know about them (e.g., Brazil) makes them look absolutely devastating.

I respectfully reject your objections on two grounds.
1) The inevitability is *inevitability of utopia*, which is measured, and justified, by egalitarian resource distribution. M-L was indeed premised upon representing the populace, that’s who Utopia is for- salvation by people for people. My point is that not all systems optimize for values derived from, or in relation to, the population (See neocameralism and monarchy as notable examples- both appealing to values independent of popular appeal or genesis)
2) Incorrect. Reduction in who constitutes the electorate through exportation increases the degree of representation of the citizenry through homogenization- by exporting those who aren’t represented (decreasing ideological variation across winners and losers of election). In the second case, we aren’t talking about actual voice, but evidently effective discursive methods of justifying and legitimizing sovereignty. What I said earlier.

Surely you realize this is sophistry and word games. If you are verbally facile enough to convince yourself that eliminating voters and even elections is a move to increase democracy, your talents are wasted here. You should aspire to the honored place in the Cathedral that is surely your due.

Lol ok. In true cathedral fascion I’m going to double down. I didn’t say or mean increasing democracy, i am interested in claims to popular representation as a means of discursively securing social legitimacy. The more homogenous the population the more credible such claims are -a function of ideological variation. “Representing the volk” is a more plausible claim if the Volk are similar. So in terms of rhetorical strategy, fascism represents the nation, democracy represents 51% of the nation, neocameralism represents the shareholders, the monarchy represents the noble family. This matters because legitimacy is reproduced through discourse. Now the relationship of *actual* voice to presumed voice is another issue, but I thought I mentioned that too. I didn’t think i was saying anything all that objectionable or sophistic.

Also, I’m not saying that this describes the principle distinction between the systems, merely that this describes the vector. Neocameralism and monarchy are distinguished by their indifference to this type of legitimization. Both appeal to gnon. But this is why democracy leads to fascism (or sister communism) because totalitarianism is just what it says. Once you ride the populism train, total is more legit than plural.

Which is not to say that neocameralism or monarchy abide this legitimization strategy (they cannot). Keep in mind the left/right vector is meaningful in the context of progressive discourse, which is the operable one here. (Alternative discourses imply alternative vectors, like fealty to god for example)

A bit too concise for me. Would you please explain that? How does fascism have anything to do with Benjamin Hill’s “the trust of selecting agents to provide and execute the laws by which rights are to be protected”?

Prophet Moldbug saith that in cis-democracy, power from upward from the people. Basically, this is populism. In trans-democracy, power flows down from the elite, but mostly doesn’t, and is trapped in a closed loop.